The Last Penny Has Finally Dropped

Miss_Poohs

My husband has massive debts, Northern Rock, Halifax, Egg, Lombard.... all totalling around £100,000.

As we are in Scotland, last year he signed up for a DAS - which he has been paying for 12 months now - which makes £6000 toward his debt.

At the time I found out about all this (yer damn right, it was a hell of a shock) I thought he should declare himself bankrupt, but he refused saying he felt responsable and wanted to pay it all back - very noble I suppose, but unfortunately not very practical.

12 years this DAS is for - meanwhile me and our son suffer, because we never have a spare bean.

He's now talking about bankruptcy - as he's seeing what this is doing to his family. Not for one minute because B/R is an easy option but because it would be over and done with long before 12 yrs.

He has a good enough job (for now anyway) so I'm assuming he'd be slapped with some kind of pay back, can anyone tell me how long this would last ie like the maximum period its allowed to run, as I know he'd have to pay something toward his debtors.

We have the person from Welfare Rights coming out on Wednesday, I just want to have some idea what to expect.

Many thanks

Miss P

mustbedebtfree

If he has a surplus of over £100 per month after all household costs he will be subject to an IPA which i believe is 50-70% of the surplus

An IPA lasts for 3 years

Has he completed an SOA and then you could see what the surplus would be??

MBDF

Dan_1976

Dont worry about the lenders, I had the attitude of feeling guilt!

Do you think they would care about you! Nope they would not!

My IPA is for 3 years, and it wont pay anything like what I owe back. I will be discharged next month I hope and went in Dec 08 so ican be done and dusted very quickly.

Get advice and take it slowly, make sure it is the right thing for you and your family!

Dan_1976

Yep, my wife is paying nothing and will be discharged soon also.

Miss_Poohs

Thank you everyone - this site has given me alot of advice over the past year or so.

There have been many days (and more nights) I could have run screaming into the hills had it not been for you guys.

As I say we'll see the debt counsellor on Wednesday, he's coming to the house, but I have the feeling he will do everything in his power to try and convince DH not to go the bankruptcy route - but in all honesty, I couldn't live like this for the next 12 years.

DH is working all weekend (well he has a DAS to support, and it is my birthday tomorrow too boohoo) so we'll have to sit down and do our SOA together before Wednesday - oh joy.

I won't be going B/R and for our sons sake I don't want to lose our home either, so thats something we'll have to seriously consider.

I'll keep taking the deep breaths and loggin on to MSE.